International Student Enrolments in New Zealand 2001-2007

Publication Details

This report summarises the publicly available data, from four main sources, on enrolments of international students within New Zealand education provider sectors from 2001 to 2007. Summary information is also stated on the numbers of approved student visas and permits for the calendar years 2001 to 2007.

Author(s): International Division, Ministry of Education.

Date Published: June 2008

This report is available as a download (please refer to the 'Downloads' inset box, right). Please consider the environment before
printing the contents of this report.

Introduction

This information is disaggregated by origin, according to the key markets of North Asia, South-East Asia, the Middle East, Europe and North America, and the developing markets of Latin America and South Asia. Further information is given on the estimated economic value-added to New Zealand from international education.

Sources

The information in this memorandum is based on public data released by the Ministry of Education, Statistics New Zealand, and the Immigration Service of the Department of Labour.

School enrolments

The Ministry’s data on international enrolments within schools is stated as at 1 July from 2001 to 2005, and is from the roll returns summaries listed here on the International Students in New Zealand page on the Education Counts website.

Tertiary enrolments

The Ministry’s data on international enrolments within public and private tertiary education organisations is for the years 2001 to 2005, and summarises those students enrolled at any time during the year in formal qualifications of more than a weeks duration at the 35 public tertiary educational institutions and the 263 private providers that received Ministry of Education funding, or that enrolled students in receipt of student loans or student allowances. The statistics represent student numbers rather than enrolments, and include exchange, scholarship, and foreign fee-paying students. Visit the International Students in New Zealand page on the Education Counts website.

English Language Provider enrolments

The information on enrolments within English language providers (ELP) is from the annual Statistics New Zealand Survey of English Language Providers, for the financial years ended 31 March 2001 to 31 March 2006. As a convention to aggregate the data sources used in the tables in this report, the English Language Provider data from Statistics New Zealand is stated as covering the previous calendar year, i.e. the ELP data for the year ended 31 March 2006 is included in the ‘2005’ period.

Immigration data

The Immigration New Zealand website (Department of Labour) publishes monthly updates on the numbers of approved applications for student visas and permits. While this information source provides a timely update on the origins of prospective international students, the data is not able to be matched with the actual enrolments in different providers, as this information is not collected by the Department of Labour.

A point to be borne in mind when referring to student visa and permit data is that it can understate total student numbers, as many enrolees in English Language Providers are believed to be in New Zealand on visitor visas.

The Export Education Levy

The periods used for 2001–2005 are not directly comparable with the calendar year information recorded for the Export Education Levy (‘the Levy’), which has been administered by the Ministry of Education since January 2003. This Levy is paid by all providers which enrol foreign fee-paying students. Information on the national origins of enrolments has been collected from January 2006.

A limitation of the Levy data is that it only records enrolments of international fee-paying students, and so does not include students who have domestic fees status with New Zealand state education providers. This group includes exchange students, French and German post-graduate students, and international Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) students who enrolled from 19 April 2005.

Summary

The total enrolments of international students across all provider groups rose by 61 percent from 2001 to 2002, from 79,030 to 126,919. From the market peak in 2002 there has been a 28 percent decline to 90,934 enrolments in 2006. This decline mainly affected the schools and private training establishments. From 2005 a reduction in total enrolments within the state tertiary education sector1 was also recorded.

A graphical representation of this data is shown in Chart 1. It is apparent that the greatest increase in enrolments occurred within the English language provider sector, followed by the tertiary education institutions. While the decline since the 2002 peak is clearly evident, the 2007 level is still about 15 percent above the total recorded for 2001.

Table 1: International enrolments by provider groups

2001

2002

2003

2004

2005

2006

2007

Schools

10,555

15,259

17,448

14,477

11,984

13,933

15,207

Public Tertiary Education Institutions

20,405

30,714

39,009

43,047

40,706

35,261

31,143

Private Training Establishments

6,345

9,443

10,475

9,876

5,807

44,662

44,584

English Language Providers

41,725

71,503

50,689

43,417

35,749

..

..

Totals

79,030

126,919

117,621

110,817

94,246

93,856

90,934

Notes:

Sources 2001-2005: Schools data is at 1 July (Ministry of Education roll returns.) Tertiary data, for public and private providers, is for full calendar years 2001 to 2005 (Ministry of Education Single data return database. English language provider data is for the financial years ended 31 March 2002 to 2006 (Statistics New Zealand Survey of English Language Providers).

Sources 2006-2007: Export Education Levy database for the full calendar year for schools, state tertiary providers, and private training establishments (described as SDR' and non-SDR' private providers). The latter category includes English langugage providers.

Chart 1: Enrolments of international students in New Zealand, by provider groups

Footnote

The tertiary education sector includes the publicly-funded institutions of the universities, institutes of technology/polytechnics, wananga, and teachers colleges; and the private training establishments (PTEs) that receive government funding for their students.